So Wednesday of the last week of school, Adam and I sat perspiring in detention. Neither one of us was too happy to be there. School was almost out; all the other kids were off swimming or studying for finals. We were both cooped up in a room with a bunch of brain junkies and a crotchety old teacher. It was the day after we'd skipped school. Adam and I hadn't spoken to each other since Mrs. Nyler had taken us back to the building, where we'd had to embarrassingly explain to the office where we'd been. Without a word, the counselors had shucked us into Wednesday detention, a blistering blow when we realized that the lack of air conditioning in the Goldenrock Middle detention room made the atmosphere comparable to a sauna full of sweaty old men.

Behind me snoozed a guy with a hoodie pulled over his head, even though hoods were strictly off limits. To my slightly diagonal left was a bleach-haired boy wearing a greasy white T-shirt and slouching so low in his chair that his head was barely visible over his desktop. A big girl was filing her two-inch nails a few desks ahead of me; she'd been chewing the same piece of gum for an hour-and-a-half, and I was about ready to pull it out of her smacking mouth myself. Adam and I were the only two normal people in there, and that was including the moley teacher, who I suddenly realized had begun to doze off in his swiveling chair.

"Adam!" I whispered quietly, leaning toward him. We only had another twenty minutes to go. "Why'd your mom have to turn us in, man?"

When I'd first called his name, he'd turned attentively toward me. After I mentioned his mom, a snooty look crossed over his face and he turned back around. I probably hadn't started a conversation in the best way possible, I thought. Because of that, I didn't think he'd say anything else to me, but all of a sudden, he was whispering back in my direction.

"I went back last night," he hissed, turning the topic in another direction.

"Back where?" I questioned.

"That tree!"

The girl paused in filing her nails. Adam stopped talking abruptly and widened his eyes. We saw her examine her cuticle, then start sanding down her finger again.

I sighed real softly. "The tree?" I said, pretending not to care at all.

"Yeah. Figured out how to put that rope up around the branch. Got it all hooked and everything. But I didn't go up inside. It got too dark and I didn't bring a flashlight. So we can go back today."

I was annoyed. Annoyed that he'd gone back without me. I was glad he hadn't gone up, but still . . . why couldn't he have waited? He lived closer. I was about a ten minute walk from his house, and a hike to that tree would have been another ten. So if I'd wanted to go back to it yesterday, I would've had a longer walk. Plus, my parents hadn't been too happy to hear about my detention, so they were keeping a pretty sharp eye on me; I couldn't have escaped the house if I'd wanted to. And then there was Corey, my little brother. My mom's faithful watchdog. I swore he slept at my door the night before, making sure I wasn't going to try and sneak out. Not like I would have. I've never had to sneak out in my life. My parents trust me—most of the time. Corey was the one they had to watch, I always told them. But did they listen? Course not. That's parents for you.

Adam crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair real slowly. He was trying not to make any fast moves because of the heat. It was so hot that I could feel sweat sliding down the back of my neck into my shirt collar, but there was Adam, sporting the same enormous pants he always had on. Today, he was even wearing long sleeves and this gray knit hat that covered down over his ears and made his longish hair stick out funny. I was ten degrees hotter just looking at him.

"I'm heading back today," he told me. "After we bust out of here."

He made it sound like he was itching to break out of jail. That was kind of how I was starting to feel. "I can't," I whispered back to him. "I'm grounded."

"Grounded?" Adam's voice rose in annoyance. I glanced around nervously, because the big girl had stopped filing her nail and was twirling a braid around her pencil. "Doesn't this count as grounded? My mom isn't making me do anything more."

I rolled my eyes. "So. Mine is."

"You're such a suck-up. Who cares what your parents say."

"Oh shut up," I sighed.

The girl turned around and looked me in the face. She did it so fast that I backed up, because I'd leaned over onto my desktop out of boredom and heat exhaustion. She was large and tough and had one eye that was yellower than the other—and I'm not joking. It was freaky. "Aww," she teased, shaking her head back and forth in front of me. "The widdle baby's gwounded by his mommy!"

I was so shocked I didn't even know what to do. It was so weird of her to get in my face like that. I didn't even know who she was! And not like it was any of her business what I was saying to my friend. Should I get back in her face? Should I do something? No. She'd smack me like her wad of gum. But I couldn't just do nothing. What the heck could I say?

Adam said it for me. "Why don't you go back to gluing on your hair, or whatever you were doing."

Leave it to Adam to start something.

The girl wheeled on him. She was a lot louder when she said, "Excuse me? You don't think it's real?" She tugged hard on her braids.

"Whatever. Just leave us alone. We weren't talking to you."

I bit my lip and got as close to praying as I ever had. I didn't know if I would try to help Adam out of this one. Then again, he had gotten me out of having to reply to the girl. But he was such an idiot when it came to picking fights. He didn't know who to stay away from. I, on the other hand, knew to stay away from everybody. Fights weren't my thing.

Just when the girl was starting to get real angry with Adam, though, the classroom door burst outward and another girl threw herself into the steamy room. She was super pale but had dark makeup all around her eyes. Her hair was up in weird ways and she had on this big baggy T-shirt that nearly fell past the cuffs of her jean cut-offs and lots of gold jewelry that bangled around her. She raised her hand, stepped toward the girl harassing Adam and me, and cried, "Hey yo, Brittany! Tony—he creepin'!"

The large girl (whom I assumed was named Brittany) literally rocketed out of her desk. "You lyin', Tiff!" she cried.

By this time, every eye in the room was open and plastered on the two girls. The other guys (including the one sleeping under his hoodie) and even the teacher were just staring bug-eyed at them. None of us were going to make a move. Not a shred of muscle tensed. Not an eyelid blinked. I don't even think we breathed.

"You callin' me liar?" hissed the white girl.

The black one rolled her hips around like she was made of rubber. "No," she snapped. "I'm 'bout to bust you up!" And with that, she started forward, knocking desks out of her way to get to her victim. The other girl turned fast, slipped a little in her dangerous foam flip flops, then disappeared out of the open door. Brittany followed her out, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

Silence filled the room. For several bizarre moments, the five of us guys just stared at the doorway, goggling like we had peeled grapes for eyeballs. We were suddenly bonded in a way none of us had foreseen, and that was proven when the teacher got to his feet, shut the door, turned to us boys, and said in a nasal voice, "Gentlemen, it is wise to never, ever become involved in what you could call a cat fight." He raised a finger in the air as if it would make us see his point, adding, "Female arguments can be rather intense. Personally, I would prefer a punch in the gut." Then he stopped like we were listening enraptured and went to his telephone, where he proceeded to call the office and inform them of the fight that was likely taking place somewhere in the halls.

When the teacher's back was to us, I turned to Adam. The guy in the white shirt was snickering, and the one with the hood crawled back under it and began drooling again. "I think I'd eat dog poop before coming back to detention," I muttered in horror.

Adam nodded. Even he, in all his pretend toughness, was not one for drama. Quickly trying to hide the fact that he was startled, he added under his breath, "Freak me out."

When the remainder of our sentence was completed, Adam and I wobbled out of the room like a couple of limp noodles. It was cooler outside under the sun than it had been in that classroom. I didn't think I'd survive another round of detention if I was ever given it. Adam felt the same, I could tell. As we crossed the asphalt in soggy silence, feeling rather like a couple of war refugees, Adam pointed out something disgustingly familiar lying on the blacktop.

There, amidst the snakes of hazy heat rising off the hot ground, were a number of long black braids. The ownerless things were frazzled at the ends where they'd been ripped off. At least ten of them were scattered across the pavement.

"Oh shit!" Adam hissed.

I wanted to laugh, but it was really too unfortunate. "I guess they weren't real, anyway," was all I could say.

"And she tried to deny it . . .!"

Then we laughed, but it was a cautious sort of laugh. Believe me, after seeing that, neither one of us ever wanted to make a girl mad—or get extensions, for that matter. Adam once went through a period of wanting long blue dreadlocks planted on his head. That was when he was trying to impress this girl who (I swear) dressed like she belonged in a circus. Some of the weirdest people on the planet go to Goldenrock Middle. If there was a freak show in town, half the student body (and most of the teachers) could find full-time positions there. Maybe that's what happened to that girl—maybe she joined a freak show. Adam said she moved, but who knows, really? I'd believe she was returned to the mother ship if he'd told me that. Anyway, all desire for long locks was vanquished that day we found those braids on the road.

Sometimes I thought Adam needed to be beamed home too, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, speaking of making girls mad, Adam and I were just having a bad day. We were trudging home from detention through the balmy heat, kicking up clots of dirt and feeling very grungy, when we ran into . . . the Abominable Ham. That's what Adam, the student body of Goldenrock Middle, and I called her, at least.

She was crouching over a fire hydrant, real close to the ground, with her massive rear end facing me and Adam. It was a stomach-emptying sight, so I was glad I hadn't had lunch that day. The first thought that popped into my head was that of a comparison between her and a large dog relieving itself. Not pleasant, but it's what popped in there. I never would've said anything about that image out loud, that's for sure. I wasn't the sort who went around causing trouble.

Adam wasn't like me, though. "What are you doing, Ham?" he smirked. "Should we follow you around with a pooper scooper?"

I could've kicked him right then, him standing there with his hands in his pockets and some look on his face like the sky could be falling around him and he wouldn't care.

The Abominable Ham stumbled as she tried to get up on her stumpy legs. Now, the Ham on the ground looking at a fire hydrant was one thing, but the Ham on her feet towering over and all around us was another. I mean, there wasn't a speck of sunlight on either of us when she stood full-height and width. She hadn't seen us coming. She'd been looking at something on the ground. But now she looked mad. To insult the Ham meant instant pain.

"What did you say, runt?" she bellowed with the breath of an elephant. The freakiest thing of all was that she was looking straight at me.

I was shaking all over, sad to say. I've never been the stand-and-fight type; I'm more of a run-while-you-can-and-scream-like-a-baby sort. That's why I was smart about not picking fights. Adam was stupid, though. He said all the wrong things to all the wrong people, and at that moment, with the Ham staring down at me like a snorting bull seeing red, I really wondered why I was still friends with the idiot at all. The stammering set in. "It wasn't . . . I d-didn't . . . h-he –"

"Shut it!" roared the Ham.

So I did. Not a sound more from me. Not a peep.

"You're dead, slime," she threatened, leaning toward us. I could focus only on her fist, which she was pumping mercilessly into the open palm of her other hand.

I was waiting for Adam to admit that he'd been the one who made the comment, but he didn't—the coward. I knew he was just as terrified as I was, and there was no way he was going to confess. He was regretting what he'd said with a passion; I could tell by the twitch in his mouth. Still, I knew he wouldn't make a move. It had to be me. So, shooting Adam a sideways glance from the corners of my eyes, I saw that he caught my meaning, and within milliseconds, the two of us had run around the Ham, me to the left, Adam to the right—quick moves in opposite directions confuse large, dumb animals—and we'd left the beast far behind. If there was one thing we bet the Abominable Ham couldn't do, it was run, so that's what we did.

After a good five minutes of intense hustling, I couldn't move anymore. I fell down puffing onto a patch of dry grass, and Adam flung himself wheezing next to me. The little blades prickled me through the back of my T-shirt and along my sweaty neck. I was wet with sweat. Adam pulled off his gray hat and dropped it over his face. He had total hat hair.

"Thanks a lot, asshole," I huffed when I caught a breath. "You almost got me killed back there."

Adam was even more breathless than I was. "Nah," he gasped, his words muffled through his hat. "She wouldn't have killed you. Maybe ripped off a leg or something."

"Oh yeah? Like that's any better!"

"Sure it is!" He pulled the hat off his face. "Then Coach Ice couldn't get mad at you for not running the mile in under nine-point-five minutes."

Despite my being angry, I couldn't help but laugh. Adam and I were like that. Mad at each other one minute, cracking up the next. I didn't even understand why we were friends, myself.

"So, what do you think she was doing?" he asked me.

I thought for a minute, staring up at the cloud-patched sky, wishing one puff of white would cover up the blazing sun for at least thirty seconds. "I don't know—eating dirt?"

Adam didn't respond. He was staring upward too. At that moment, I really couldn't tell what he was thinking. That unnerved me; I liked to think I knew his mind. Then he surprised me by pointing up. "Hey," he said quietly. "Look at that cloud. Do you see what it looks like?"

"No," I answered, narrowing my eyes in the brightness.

"A great big pig," he replied.

Then I saw it. "Oh yeah . . . a pig with hair extensions."

The sound of a screen door squealing open came from behind us. Then a crotchety old voice rattled, "Hey, punks! Get off my yard!" It was hard to get up. Neither of us wanted to move. "Now!" cried the man's voice. "Lousy vandalizers. Punk kids with nothing better to do than kill off my lawn . . . !"

Sighing into the open space of the world, Adam and I peeled ourselves off the dead grass, wiped our sweating foreheads, and pressed on toward home.